Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of computers, and, more particularly, to access control on a computer system.
Current computer system access control mechanisms in operating systems control access to resources such as login access, and file access. Some operating systems, such as conventional UNIX or UNIX-like operating systems, implement access control mechanisms of coarse granularity. On a UNIX system or UNIX-like system, system administration activities are typically performed through a root account. System administrators responsible for the administration of the system share/manage the password to the root account or use access control tools that allow access to the desired services after sufficient authentication. Some operating systems allow a finer granularity of control through role based access control (RBAC) mechanisms, where different usernames are assigned roles and only specified roles are allowed access.